October 13, 2011: The decisions from the UPS National Grievance Panel are now available. So is the new schedule of golf resort meetings set by Hoffa and Hall.

The decisions from the September UPS National Grievance Panel are now available from TDU. Incredibly, these are the first grievance decisions to be issued by the panel in a year.

You read that right. Despite runaway contract violations by UPS nationwide, the national grievance panel issued no decisions for one full year. The last grievance panel was held in March. No grievance decisions were ever released. The June grievance panel was postponed until September.

While members’ grievances have been stonewalled, the company has been running roughshod over the contract.

Click here to download the national grievance panel decisions.

Click here to download the national grievance panel decisions from the Air Committee.

The Resort Members’ Grievances Go to Die

The UPS National Grievance Committee settles national disputes and other grievances that have been deadlocked at both the local and regional levels.

It’s also where some Teamster officials go to golf with management. Hoffa and Ken Hall just announced they have scheduled the panels for next year. They chose golf resort hotels for every panel meeting.

First stop in 2012 is the Westin Beach Resort in Ft. Lauderdale. Check out this photo.

The resort’s website encourages guests to “pamper yourself at our tranquil spa” and to “discover local marine life with a snorkeling or scuba expedition, try your hand at deep-sea fishing, or just enjoy a day out on a jet ski or boat”—and to hit the links of course.

A call from TDU to the hotel promptly resulted in an email with five pages of golfing options and the promise that, “Our concierge team would be happy to make any tee time reservations you would like.”

Is it any wonder that contract enforcement at UPS is at an all-time low?

Click here to download the schedule of national grievance panels for 2012.

August 24, 2011: The national UPS Freight grievance panel will meet Sept. 14-16 in San Diego—and many locals continue to grieve subcontracting out of Teamster work.

Click here to download the docket.

UPDATED February 17, 2011: The docket is now available for the first UPS national panel of the year, March 7-9 at the Westin Beach Resort in Ft. Lauderdale.

Click here to read the docket of cases that will be heard.

Click here to read the docket for the Joint National Air Committee.

The UPS National Grievance Committee settles disputes and other grievances that have been deadlocked at both the local and regional levels. The panel will meet two more times this year: June 6-10 and Oct. 12-16.

The UPS Freight National Grievance Panel will meet March 9-11 at the same resort.

UPDATE: Click here to download the docket for the UPS Freight National Grievance Committee.

December 20, 2010: The dates and locations for the UPS National Grievance Committee meetings have been set.

The next National Grievance panel will be held March 7-11. (March 7-9 for UPS and March 9-11 for UPS Freight.)

The panel will meet two other times this year: June 6-10 and Oct. 12-16.

November 16, 2010: The decisions from the October National Grievance Panel in San Diego are now available online.

The UPS National Grievance Committee settles national disputes and grievances that have been deadlocked at both the local and regional levels.

Click here to download the October National Grievance Panel decisions.

Click here to download the October Joint Air Committee decisions.

September 28, 2010: The next meeting of the UPS Freight national grievance panel will be in San Diego on Oct. 13-15.

Article 44 subcontracting grievances remain a big issue. Nineteen cases were either carried over or remain on “committee hold.” These grievances are getting old and are from terminals across the U.S.—Columbus, Seattle, Jacksonville, Las Vegas, Dallas, Boise, and many points in between. There are two new Article 44 cases on the docket from Orlando Local 385 and Newburgh, N.Y. Local 707.

Following the May 2010 panel, union chair Ken Hall said that a grievance out of Dallas Local 745 would be taken to arbitration if it went unresolved by August. We have no update on that promise.

There are 25 new grievances on various issues on the national docket. Click here to download the docket.

June 23, 2010: The decisions from the June National Grievance Panel, June 7-100 are out. Hoffa and Hall continue to give up our full-time 22.3 jobs without a fight.

The most common grievance on the docket for the June National Grievance Panel dealt with Article 22.3 and UPS’s elimination of full-time combo jobs we won in the 1997 strike.

But once again the International Union did not hear a single Article 22.3 grievance at the National Panel in June. The panel has ignored this issue going on three years.

Click here to download the June National Grievance Panel decisions.

Full-Time Jobs Giveaway

The contract requires UPS to maintain 20,000 full-time 22.3 jobs, but thousands of these positions are vacant or were never created in the first place. The Article 22.3 language is clear and makes no exception for falling volume. In fact, the language with that exception was negotiated out of the contract in 2002.

Members across the country have filed hundreds of 22.3 grievances to save these jobs. But the International Union has refused to hear any of them at the national level.

Ken Hall, Hoffa’s point man at UPS, told a national conference call of UPS stewards that “2009 was not the right time” to enforce Article 22.3. Hall promised action would come when the economy turned around.

That was in March. Since then, UPS announced that it made more half a billion in profits in the first three months of this year alone—a 33 percent hike in First Quarter profits.

But Hoffa and Hall continue to sit on their hands. Could it be they are more interested in collecting money from the big Brown dues machine than in enforcing our contract?

Download the Decisions

TDU is the only source that makes the docket and decisions UPS grievance panels available to the rank and file.

Click here to download the June National Grievance Panel decisions.

Click here to download the National Air Committee decisions.

The minutes from the March National Grievance Panel have been revised. Click here to download the revised March decisions.

May 25, 2010: Teamster representatives will meet with UPS Freight management in Providence Rhode Island for the quarterly national panel on June 9-11.

To view the grievance docket click here.

Many Article 44 subcontracting grievances are still on the table. Tampa Local 79, Phoenix Local 104, Columbus Local 413, Nashville Local 480 and Reno Local 533 all have cases that were delayed from previous dockets. Cases on “committee hold” addressing Article 44 remain from North Carolina Local 61, Phoenix Local 104, Seattle Local 174, Orlando Local 385, Boise Local 483, South Carolina Local 509, New York Local 707, Dallas Local 745, and Miami Local 769. There are new Article 44 cases from Seattle Local 174, Jacksonville Local 512, and Harrisburg, Pa., Local 776.

At the most recent national panel in March 2010, the panel deadlocked a grievance from Dallas Local 745 that challenged the use of rail. In a press release following the March panel, Ken Hall, the International Vice President in charge of contract enforcement at UPS Freight, said the national committee is doing “an outstanding job” on subcontracting, and the lack of progress is “absolutely not their fault.”

With the June panel, Teamster members have another opportunity to judge the state of progress on addressing key issues at UPS Freight.

What do you think? Clickhere to send your ideas or comments to Teamsters for a Democratic Union.

May 21, 2010: The second UPS national panel of the year will meet June 7–10 in Providence, Rhode Island.

Click here to read the docket of cases that will be heard.

Click here to read the docket for the Joint National Air Committee.

The UPS National Grievance Committee settles disputes and other grievances that have been deadlocked at both the local and regional levels.

April 2, 2010: IBT Vice President Ken Hall says that the UPS Freight National Panel is doing an “outstanding job.”

So why did our union only win five grievances at the March panel?

Teamsters at UPS Freight didn’t have much to cheer about when they reviewed the results of their national grievance panel.

Out of 27 grievances heard, the union won only five cases—and none dealing with subcontracting.

The UPS Freight National Panel met March 3-5 in Ft. Lauderdale. The union referred back five more grievances for the local to resolve with the company. The panel postponed or put on hold 36 more grievances.

The union has little to show for its time except for a few small monetary victories. The largest victory by far was in a case where the company will pay nine days of back pay.

The panel deadlocked an important Article 44 grievance from Dallas that challenges the use of rail. Now the union can choose to take that grievance to arbitration.

“The numbers from the panel don’t lie. I know our union can do a better job enforcing our contract. It starts with getting the members informed and involved. And then we’ve got to turn up the heat on management for real,” commented G.W. Owensby, a road driver from Kansas City Local 41.

“I know members are willing to do something because we’re getting run over by subcontractors.”

Subcontracting

Over 40 subcontracting grievances were on the docket for this panel, but the union only took action in three cases involving rail, not cases of subcontracting involving nonunion carriers.

Fourteen subcontracting grievances were withdrawn, five were postponed, and 12 were put on committee hold. Three subcontracting grievances were scheduled on the docket “in error.”

At the end of the panel, the union announced that it will take a “lead case” on subcontracting from Dallas Local 745 to arbitration.

In a press release at the time of the national panel, Ken Hall, the International Vice President in charge of contract enforcement at UPS Freight, said the national grievance committee is doing “an outstanding job” on the issue and the lack of progress on reducing subcontracting is “absolutely not their fault.”

Who’s to Blame?

So whose fault is it? And more importantly, what’s the plan for reducing the practice and putting more Teamster members to work?

“Ken Hall says there is not sufficient documentation or facts to back up the grievances on subcontracting. We see the facts on the ground everyday. But we haven’t seen any information from the union on how to document these violations. And I know some stewards have really put together a lot of documentation,” said John Weir, a road driver from 533 in Reno, Nev. “We’re willing to do what it takes to get this problem solved.”

Members want contract enforcement and are ready to follow a plan that works.

“When TDU started shining a light on subcontracting at UPS Freight, I knew I had to get more involved. I ordered a bundle of the Teamster Voice and have been getting them out to other Teamsters. We’re building a network to get this contract enforced.”

David Loyd, UPS Freight, Local 150, Sacramento, Calif.